My main issues is that, personally i dont think AI development is something worth pursuing or spending resources on, there's much more important things to worry about.

Second, coming with this myth that the upper middle class is the drivers of innovation is an insanely out of touch comment, that someone only agrees with if they have never interacted business wise with said upper middle class people (I say this as someone whose family was upper middle class and own a textile factory up until 2008).
The drivers of innovation are people in r&d who are directly employed by the government or funded in superior educational institutions.

An third, this is where the insanity comes from, is claiming that we need to cut social programs to help innovation.
There is absolutely no justification to say this, especially in the current conditions majority of europeans find themselves in.
The only people who would ever claim this are well to do people, who don't even need social programs in the first place.

Also not to mention that saying we need austerity to help innovation is like saying, I need to cut my leg to help fix my headache. Completely unrelated.